The Golden Bird eBook

And then from somewhere in my heart, which had harbored
the cuddle of the cold lamb babies against it, there
rose a knowledge of first aid for the near-baby chickens.

“Oh, Bess,” I exclaimed, “let’s
wrap the tray of eggs up in the quilt and take it
up-stairs to bed with us. We are just as warm
as the hen, and I’ll get Rufus to go for Polly
at daylight to fix the lamp while we stay in bed and
huddle them until the incubator warms up, as it does
in just an hour after it’s lighted.”

“Ann, you are both maternal and intellectual,”
said Bess, with the deepest admiration in her voice.
“Let’s hurry or we’ll never get warmed
up ourselves.”

And in very much less time than could be imagined
Bess Rutherford and I were in the middle of the four-poster,
sunk deep into the feathers with the precious pearls
of life carefully imbedded between us.

“Now don’t joggle,” Bess commanded
as we got all settled and tucked in.

“I don’t believe it; no woman would undertake
the responsibility of human life like that,”
Bess answered as she tucked in a loose end of cover
under the pillow.

“Most of the world mothers sleep with their
babies,” Adam said when I told him about little
Tillett, “and—­” I was answering
when I trailed off into a dream of walking a tight
rope over a million white eggs. In the morning
Bess said she had dreamed that she was a steam roller
trying to make a road of eggs smooth enough to run
her car over.

CHAPTER VII

Also Bess and I woke to find ourselves heroines.
Matthew came to breakfast after he had seen the lamps
in his mock hens burning brightly, and brought Polly
with him to congratulate us on the rescue of our infant
industry. Polly had told him of our brilliant
coup against old Jack Frost, and he was all enthusiasm,
as was also Uncle Cradd, while father beamed because
he was hearing me praised and thought of something
else at the same time. Later Owen Murray came
out for Bess in his car, and insisted on buying six
more of the eggs, because, he said, they had now become
a sporting proposition and interested him. Bess
agreed to board them to maturity in her conservatory
for him at fifty cents a day per head and let him visit
them at any time. He gave me a check immediately.
He offered to buy six of Polly’s chicks at the
same price, but Matthew refused to let her sell them
at all, and also Bess refused to have any mixing of
breeds in her conservatory. Polly didn’t
know enough to resent losing the hundred and twenty
dollars, because she had never had more than fifty
cents in her life, and Matthew didn’t realize
what it would have meant to her to have that much
money, because he had more than he needed all his life,
so they were all happy and laughed through one of
Rufus’ worst hog effusions in the way of a meal